Category Archives: Video marketing

interactive business video

How an Interactive Video Can Help Your Business

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What is an Interactive Video?

Traditional video are what most of us are used to viewing. They allow the viewer to click play, watch, and perhaps rewind or fast forward the video. Interactive videos allow the viewer to actually take part in the video. It allows the creator to develop different paths that the viewer can choose as they watch the video. Interactive videos engage consumers and many top brands, such as Honda and Warner Bros and Maybelline are using them in their marketing.

Should you? Here is a scenario:

It seems that everyone is concerned about how pretty their videos look, but have less concern about what the best way is to turn their video viewers into customers. Video viewers are just normal people. Each viewer is a different person with different hopes, dreams and desires, and yet online we seem to treat all of them as one person.

As business owners, we create one video. We have one sales message and we have one call-to-action, hoping to convert thousands of different types of people.

It doesn’t seem to make much sense. If you were a personal trainer, for instance, you probably would talk to a guy that wants to put on muscle differently from a woman that wants to lose weight.

interactive business video

In the real world we understand that every person is different, yet for some reason we forget this when we’re making videos online. As a result, we suffer with lower conversions, higher video drop-offs and less sales than we deserve.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Interactive videos allow the person watching our videos to choose what they want to see, which allows us to convert them in real time, based on their individual hopes, dreams and desires.

This is how it works. Imagine for a second you’re in the diet market and you know that your product can help men and women lose weight. You know you have at least these two groups within your audience that would love to buy your product. If your video only speaks to the first group, the second group won’t buy, and if you make your videos for the second group, the first group won’t buy.

What is needed is a video that speaks to both groups. Unfortunately, that’s not possible with traditional videos, but with interactive videos you can ask your audience questions and then deliver custom content on the spot based on their answers.

Imagine how much your business will grow when you start speaking to your video viewers directly instead of presenting just one message to everyone.

What Elements Can Be Used Within Interactive Videos

There are several different elements that can be used within interactive videos.

  • Hotspots are clickable areas (buttons, images, text) within a video that can take a viewer to a new web page, another video, or open up a new window where the viewer can interact further.
  • Interactive videos can make use of branches, or different paths that a viewer can take to customize the content they view.
  • Optin Forms or other types of data fields can be created through which a user can enter information such as their name and email address.
  • Coupons and Quizzes can be created by combining buttons and branches to deliver an assessment and reveal a personalized result.

In short, the viewer can choose and then be taken to any place you’d like. This is a very powerful way to deliver what customers want and allows you to see what your customers want. Interactive videos can be placed on both websites and social media platforms. So you can reach your audience everywhere they hang out.

Why Use Interactive Video?

There are several reasons to consider using interactive video in your business.

  • Interactive videos are fun. If you have content that your customers enjoy consuming, they will consume it. Viewers are also less likely to get distracted while viewing an interactive video, since they are actively engaged as they watch.
  • Interactive videos can be measured and tracked. Traditional videos can only be tracked through number of views and time watched. There is no real way to know how effective it is or the impact it is making. With interactive videos, you can track clicks within the video. So you know what choices your viewers are making.
  • Interactive videos are more likely to convert. According to MarketingProfs, banner ads, Youtube annotations and Google display ads convert at less than 1%, while interactive videos covert at more than 11%.
  • Interactive videos enhance brand recognition. Being able to engage with the content in an interactive video makes the viewer more likely to remember your brand.

What Type of Businesses Should Use Interactive Videos?

Interactive videos are ideal for all types of businesses. Real Estate Agents can use interactive videos to show their featured listings, allow the viewer to download information about a home, or tips for selling a home. A coffee shop can create an interactive video to allow users to choose their favorite beverage and receive a coupon to use on the spot. A plumber can use an interactive video to inquire as to the nature of the viewers problem and offer solutions and a discount if they book an appointment. Ecom or brick and mortar stores can allow viewers to see descriptions and deals to compare different products within their store.

Any business that wants to provide customized information, coupons, solutions, etc., can benefit from an interactive video. An interactive video can also be created out of any already existing video, or one can be created from scratch.

To see a few examples of how interactive videos can be used to increase business, check out this page.

By creating an interactive video, you can end the frustration of having hundreds of people watch your videos and then leave without taking any action. Instead, you can find out exactly what your viewers are interested in, show them customized video segments based on their personal needs, and give them the right kind of information that they need to make a buying decision.

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Norene Broyton is a video content and small business marketing strategist. To discuss creating and using videos in your marketing, contact her on LinkedIn or at NoreneBroyton.com Mention this article to receive 25% off your first interactive video.

ways to use video in business

How To Use Video In Your Business

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For the past few days I have been talking about the importance of using video in your business. As more people seek out video to learn about products and services, businesses that do not embrace this technology will be left behind.

While people have become accustomed to walking out of the room when a commercial comes on the television, videos are different. People actively choose to watch videos and often they share them. The more you use them in your business, the greater the impact on your branding.

Ways That Businesses Use Video

The Twitter Video – While most people see twitter as a text-based social platform, what do you think your customers will think when you respond to their question with a video? Demonstrating the answer or showing the product they were asking about? Using video allows you to go above and beyond the expectations of your customer and doing so often gives you a customer for life.

Review Videos – There is nothing more real than having a customer on video raving about you and your company. With so many people using live streaming, many customers would be happy to pull out their phone and do a review on the spot. Just ask. Having a steady stream of these on YouTube and ranked in Google for potential clients to find, will have a constant “word of mouth” effect to bring in referrals. If you are not sure how to rank videos or if you would like another alternative to creating review videos, check out my blog post here.

Additionally, if you offer a recurring service, you can create a landing page for sign ups and and have these testimonial videos on that landing page. This will serve as a powerful endorsement of you and your company and further encourage potential clients to sign up.

Educational Videos – Using video to explain a solution to a problem or introduce a new service or product often works much better than putting the same information into written format.

Example of an Educational and New Product Video

Video in Email. Email that contains videos have a higher click through rate than those that do not. According to salesforce.com, simply putting the word “video” in the subject line will increase open rates by 19%. Having a video in the email message will increase click-through rate by up to 300% and reduce unsubscribes by 75%! This, of course, doesn’t mean that you can toss just any video into email and hit send.

The best type of videos to put into email are demonstration and new product videos. The key is to be brief, entertaining and engaging.

Always end your email video and all videos with a call to action. What do you want the viewer to do? What page do you want him to land on next? Are you sending him to a purchase page, a page that contains more information, another video or are you asking him to give you a call?

Next Steps

If you want to use video in your business and don’t know how to get started, contact me for a free consultation.

Comment below and let me know what ways you use video in your business, or new ways you’d like to try.

 

 

 

 

 

Business Owner With A Blog? Use This Free Tool To Tap Into Your Customers’ Questions

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If you are a small business owner, you have probably realized how important your blog is for sharing information, educating and connecting with your clients and customers. Without directly asking though, it can be difficult to know the questions that they have or what information they might find useful.

Until now.

Recently I stumbled across a great, free resource to help bloggers and video creators focus in on exactly what their clients and potential clients are asking about. It is called Answer The Public. When you type a keyword into answerthepublic.com, it returns the questions that people have been asking relating to that topic.

How To Use Answer The Public

For instance, if you are a pool cleaner, you can type in pool cleaning into the search bar and choose what country you are in. When I did that search for a person located in the US, this is what was returned.

how to get ideas for blogging for business owners

I love this visual, but if you would like something easier to read, you can also select the “data” tab and it will display these questions in row format.

By seeing what people are asking,  you can easily construct blog posts that will immediately resonate with them, while positioning yourself as the expert that you are.

Getting Even More Milage from Answer the Public

In addition to writing articles, you can also use this information to create videos or brand yourself even further by compiling the answers into a book that you can leave as a “book business card” for your clients and potential clients, or even sell to the public.

 

geting views to videos

Got Videos? Got Views?

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So you’ve spent a lot of time and money creating educational or informative videos to draw in clients and customers. You uploaded one after another to YouTube and sat back waiting for the views to roll in.

One, two… and then nothing.

So you created more and uploaded more…

And more….

And now you have dozens, perhaps hundreds of videos that you know would really help those in search of answers, but they are not being seen.

The problem could be that you are answering questions that your potential clients do not have. Check out my blog post here to discover how to know what questions your potential clients are asking.

Or perhaps you are answering their questions, but your videos are just not being found. With thousands of videos being uploaded to Youtube every single day, it is not surprising that many never see the light of day, or get viewed by those who could use them the most.

There are many factors involved to getting videos ranked in Youtube and Google where people searching for content can find them. These include optimizing the video properly, titles that are keyword rich, and also outside factors such as how many views and social shares a video receives.

What is a business owner who is trying to run a business to do? I can help. If you have videos that you would like to get more views to, contact me for a free consultation. My team can get your videos to the top of the search engines where people who need them will be able to find them and the services that you provide.

3 Reasons Brick and Mortar Businesses Should Be Using Video

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If you own a brick and mortar business and you are not yet using video, it is time to jump on board. It is no longer something you can afford to ignore. It is a powerful way to promote your brand and tell your story. Most importantly, it is an easy and effective way to build relationships with your prospects and clients.

Fun Facts About Video Marketing That Businesses Need To Consider

  1. Youtube reports mobile video consumption rises 100% every year.
  2. Real estate listings that include a video receive 403% more inquires than those without.
  3. After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online.
  4. Video in an email leads to 200-300% increase in click-through rate.
  5. 90% of users say that product videos are helpful in the decision making process.
  6. It has been estimated that one minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words.


In short, there are many reasons why brick and mortar businesses need to be using video, but here are my top three:

  1. Connect in a Personal Way with Your Customers and Prospects. Through video you can answer questions and respond to suggestions. You can update your customers on new products that are being released and invite them, in a personal way, to order your product or services again.
  2. Increase Brand Awareness. Video is the new billboard. Just like having a billboard on every corner in town, businesses can now have their video everywhere their customers and prospects hang out: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc. The more people see a brand, the more comfortable they become with that brand. And people buy from companies that they feel comfortable with; companies that they know, like and trust.
  3. Capture and Share Your Customers Gushing Over You. Through video you can capture your customers’ positive reviews in a way that is more personal than text. Reviews are powerful and even more so when done through video. These review videos can be put out on all social media platforms, as well as ranked within Google. Many people search for a company name + reviews when deciding who to buy from or who to hire. A video appearing in the search results stands out because of the thumbnail and videos are clicked on 40% more than text listings.

3 reasons brick and mortar businesses should be using video

Review videos can be created by the person giving the review, or several written reviews can be compiled into a video. In either case, video reviews will set a business apart from its competitors.

If you own a small business and have written reviews that you would like to showcase through a video, contact me for a complimentary review video. I will place up to five written reviews in the video and send it to you for you to place on your blog and/or social media accounts.

Comment below: are you using video in your business yet?

 

The Math Behind Super Bowl Commercials and How You Can Get Better Results for Just a Pittance

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This year it is estimated that companies will pay upwards of 5 million dollars for a 30 second commercial aired during the super bowl. This is up from 4.5 million spent last year for the same 30-second video, according to SBnation.com.

Is a Super Bowl Commercial Worth It?

Is it worth the cost? Every year companies bank on the Super Bowl viewership rising, but of course they won’t know until after the game whether or not the risk was worth it. According to Forbes, Super Bowl 48 (2014) had a record average audience of 112.2 million viewers and generated 331.8 million in advertising spending. This broke down to about $3 per viewer.

How Can Small Businesses Compete?

So how can smaller companies compete? I have helped small businesses create a steady steam of clients through creating engaging videos (commercials) and ranking them on the first page of Google and in the top spot on YouTube for key phrases that people use when searching for the services their business offers.

By having a first page listing, the business will not just be found once during a 3-hour game to a passive audience, but will be found day in and day out by people that are actively looking for their products and services! 

Because although the Superbowl numbers seem like a fairly inexpensive customer-acquisition cost, the real question is: did that viewer become a customer, or was the commercial’s major benefit simply brand recognition?

Why First Page Matters

According to gravitateonline, a sample of over 8 million clicks showed that over 94% of users clicked on the first page result. Less than 6% clicked over to the second page and then selected a result that was displayed there.

There have been many studies that have found that the first listing on Google gets the majority of clicks and moz.com did a summary of some of these studies. While this is still the case, over the years other positions on page one have started to get more clicks, perhaps as writers have become better at creating engaging headlines and summaries. According to neilpatel.com, click through rates (CTR) were improved by as much as 400% just by changing the headline.

The Benefits of Video

When listing results, Google almost always includes the YouTube thumbnail in the listing, drawing the eye to the listing naturally. Video listings get clicked on average twice as often than other listing on the page. Having a listing on the first page of Google increases a business’ chance of being found and by having a video for your business listed on page one of Google, it will out-perform most other listings for that search term.

page one videos

According to Virtuets, some of the benefits of video include:

  • Video ads increase purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%.
  • Online video now accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic.
  • There are more than 1 billion unique users visiting YouTube each month, spending more than 4 billion hours watching videos.

Getting The Biggest Bang for Your Buck

To increase performance, the next step is to get that same video ranked on page one of Google for more than one search phrase. If you are a roofer in Hagerstown, MD, for instance, you would want your video to show up on page one for search terms like, “Roofer Hagerstown MD,” “Best Roofer Hagerstown, MD,” “Emergency Roofer Hagerstown,” “Fix Roof Hagerstown, MD,” “Leaking Roof Hagerstown,” etc. so that you are able to reach more potential customers without increasing your cost.

Think about what a person would type (or speak) into a search engine when looking for the service or products that your company provides. With more and more people searching on their smart phones, voice searches are becoming more popular. People generally speak a search query with more words than they type the same query. You can capture these leads, too, with a well-placed video.

The video can also be placed on the company’s website. According to Virtuets, blog posts that incorporate video attract three times as many inbound links as posts without videos. This means more potential clients finding your website. According to the same source, the average person spends 88% more time on a site with video, which means they are more likely to learn all about your company and find all of the products or services that you offer.

Do You Know Your Numbers?

Do you know how many people are currently finding you online? If you have a website, is it being found? If it is being found, are people buying what your site is offering? In the Superbowl example above, it was estimated that each company with a 30 second commercial was spending about $3 per person that viewed it. Without knowing your numbers, you don’t know which advertising dollars are the best spent.

If the roofer in Hagerstown knows that:

  • on average 200 people are searching for a roofer in his area each month
  • a well placed video sends, on average, half of that traffic to his site
  • out of those 100, 4 will hire him at a profit of $2000 each,

then he can determine if securing a first page ranking is worth the cost. But he needs to know his numbers. If you are unclear on how to determine your numbers, contact us.

Unlike the companies buying Superbowl commercial spots, he doesn’t have to hope that the turnout will be good or that the people he is advertising to want what is being put in front of them. If someone is searching for a roofer, they want a new roof or a roof repair or perhaps gutter work. It is not likely that someone is on Google searching for a roofer if they actually want a landscaper or if they really don’t want anything at all.

An Affordable Option

After knowing your numbers, would you pay $500 a month to have a video on page one of Google for several search terms that your potential clients would use to find you? If that $500 brought in 2-4 new clients would it be worth it to you? If so, you will be happy to know that I help small businesses create a presence on page one for much less.

Contact me today for more information on how we can create a video commercial for you and get it on page one of Google where your potential clients are looking for you.

 

 

5 Ways to Skyrocket Sales With Video

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Are you using video in your business yet? If not, there are some compelling reasons why you should start. If you are already using video, are they working as hard as they could be to increase sales?

Why video needs to be part of your marketing plan: In an Invodo report in 2013 it was reported that:

  • 52% of consumers say watching videos on products makes them more confident to buy
  • 174% higher likelihood of product purchase among shoppers who view this media
  • Using the word “video” in an email subject line increases open rates from 7% to 13%
  • Video on your website may also increase your search engine rankings

How Videos Skyrocket Sales

Branding – since videos are engaging, it is easy to create branding by using video. The more your customers see your brand, the more likely they are to visit your place of business when they need what you offer.

Engaging – most people would prefer to watch video to obtain information than to read. By having engaging video content about your business, you are more likely to get visitors and customers than if all of the information was presented in the written form.

Know/Like/Trust – people buy from those that they know, like and trust. Because they see you and your facial expressions and your body language, it is easier to get someone to feel like they know you (and then like and trust you) through video than through print media.

Call to Action – Video lends itself well to Call to Actions — telling visitors what to do next. You can direct them to download more information, you can share your contact information with them, send them to your Facebook page or Website. Or you can send them to an opt-in page so that you can continue to send them content and offers.

Page One Ranking – Videos ranked on page one of Google stand out among those listings that are simply text. They are more likely to get clicked on then any other listing on the page.

cpa

Business Videos That Work For You

There are several types of videos that businesses can use to increase their bottom line. The more types you use, the more impact they will have.

Introduction Videos – If you have a website, it is the perfect place to have a video that introduces your business, your products and/or services. It is a great way to begin the Know/Like/Trust process that I spoke of previously.

Testimonials — video testimonials are more effective than simple text. Video shows both verbal and non verbal communication so they are more believable. Emotion sells, so if the person is passionate about what they are saying, it will resonate positively with the person watching the video.

Product Demonstration – Video lends itself well to demonstrations. In the video, benefits and features can be shown, not just talked about. If you have a product that could be considered difficult to use, a video can put aside those fears.

Commercial – Small businesses can now afford to produce commercials on video. These can be played on YouTube, Facebook, or your website. They are a great way to advertise services or products. It can also be used to build brand awareness.

Need a Video Created and/or Ranked?

Contact us for a free consultation. My team can create the perfect video(s) for your business. We also specialize in ranking videos on Google. Whether it is a video that we create or one that you already have, contact us to get it working for you in the search engines.